Being Human
by Allison Shorecoat
Summary: When the base is destroyed Optimus is assumed dead. But this couldn't be further from the truth. Mysteriously turned human Optimus seeks refuge with a small gang of social outcasts, but when the stakes rise to all new highs, he faces one hard decision after another and soon the question arises. How much of the old Optimus Prime survived the explosion?
1. Odd beginnings

**Heya all you wonderful people out there, who have decided that they want to read this brand new story of mine.**

**So here's the deal, after watching the last episode of Transformers Prime something like three million times, I still could not get over the ending and how long we have to wait until next season, so I started thinking and I guess this random story idea popped into my head. **

**Just a quick disclaimer, I do not own Transformers Prime or any of it's awesome characters. If I did, I would not be writing fanfiction about it. I only own my OC's. **

**This is just the prologue, so it's kinda short, but the chapters should lengthen out soon. **

**Please let me know what you think of it.**

Prologue:

'United we stand, divided they fall,' Starscreams sneered words still hung in the smoke heavy air, drifting on the rippling waves of heat emitted from the blazing fires which crackled and popped around the rubble.

What remained of the Autobot base was a sorry sight, nothing more than a burning, hollowed out pile of molten steel, twisted metal and crumbled rock. Nothing could have survived that blast, not even an insect remained alive in the burned out wreckage.

The Nemesis drifted away, engines rumbling ominously in the still air, none of its crew giving a second thought to the no doubt dead Autobots, all of them celebrating their victory and the conquering of yet another planet.

The flames were stating to dim, the smoke thinning as air rushed through the empty rubble, when suddenly, a small pile of rubble shifted. There were dull thunks and cracks as stones and shards of metal clattered away as a hand broke through the surface of the wreckage. Slowly, the young human pushed away the rocks and the metal slabs trapping his body, coughing and gasping as he struggled to breathe and see through the thick smoke. His bright, royal blue eyes practically shone through the haze as he blinked in horror and surprise, as if trying to make sense of it. His skin was streaked with dirt and sweat, the occasional bead of blood making its way from one of the shallow cuts or small grazes, but on his biceps, the Autobot symbol could still be seen, tattooed on his body and standing out proudly.

Breathing heavily he managed to drag himself out of the rubble, but remained kneeling on the ground, head slowly turning from side to side as his eyes drank in every square centimetre of burning wreckage.

'By the All Spark…' he whispered, voice cracking as he spoke, as if he hadn't used it for a while.

At once, his hands went to his throat and he swallowed, his brows creasing as he frowned in confusion. Then he seemed to realise something else and he raised his hands in front of his face and his eyes widened.

'Oh my….' He couldn't help but cry out as he examined the trembling hands before him.

His breathing speeding up to the point of hyperventilation, Optimus Prime looked down at his now human body. Unable to believe his eyes he reached up to touch his face,, feeling the small, straight nose, sharp cheekbones, lips, teeth, eyebrows, ears and his thick eyelashes. He ran his hands through his thick, dark brown hair, feeling the quills which sprang out in every odd direction possible and even tugged a lock down just in front of his eyes so he could see it properly.

'Not possible,' he breathed, 'This is just not possible!'

He pressed his hands down onto the floor, flinching as heat and sharp bits of metal dug into the too soft skin of his palms, un-used to such sensations. Everything felt so…strange, the way the wind circulated his body, the way he felt the heat of the still crackling flames against his skin, the way smoke caused his eyes to…leak? He wiped away the moisture which was trickling from his eyes and looked at his damp finger in confusion. Since when did eyes leak? He remembered once when Miko had been…what did she call it again? Crying? This must be the same thing, sort of, only that he wasn't sad. Confused yes, but sad? No. And didn't humans only cry when they were sad? This was so bizarre.

He wet his dry lips, wondering why his tongue felt so dry and why his throat felt scratchy, before forcing himself to his feet. Well, he tried to anyway. Once he was standing, his legs shook and his arms spun in a few rapid circles as he tried to steady himself, but he soon collapsed back onto his butt. He frowned at his legs and wriggled his toes a few times, they seemed operational to him, but then again, he was very new to this body so how was he too know if they were operational or not?

_The balance must be different_, he thought, feeling vaguely annoyed.

He tried to stand again, and failed miserably, ending up sitting back on the floor, sighing in frustration. This was so humiliating. He wondered what Ratchet would say if he could see him now. He half smiled as he pictured the Medic's exasperated shake of his head and deep sigh, followed by a muttered curse and something probably along the lines of, 'You will be the death of me.'

Arcee would be disbelieving no doubt, as would Bulkhead. Bumblebee would probably be the most accepting, although he would be curious and no doubt asking what had happened. Smokescreen, well, he wasn't sure. The rookie would probably be disbelieving as well.

Optimus was surprised to feel how tight his chest got thinking about them, and he felt…somewhat miserable. They were scattered around the globe to hide from the Decepticons and without the ground bridge he had no hope of getting to them, heck, he didn't even know where they were. And he just needed to add the fact that he was now a tiny human who couldn't even walk to make him feel even more downcast.

He was sitting, knees drawn up to his chest, when a small flicker caught his eye. He turned his head to look, curious and his heart soared when he saw the tip of a blade protruding from under a slab of concrete and twisted metal. He quickly scooted over to it and with a bit of wrestling, he managed to pull out the Star Saber which for some reason had shrunk with him. Its metal was covered in soot and ash, the handle tarnished and filthy, but when he gripped it in his hands, its blade still shone blue, the light enveloping his arm and reflecting in his eyes. He felt his lips curve up into a small smile, as relief pulsed through him. At least he still had something.

It was then, that he heard something. His ears pricked up and his head snapped round as voices filtered through the smoke and rubble.

'Dude, this place is wicked.'

'It's burnt down you dumb-ass, how is it wicked?'

'Do you reckon anyone was in here?'

'If they were I highly doubt they're alive now.'

'They might be. Positive energy!'

Optimus gulped and ducked out of sight as what appeared to be the beams of flashlights penetrated the smoke and four humanoid figures emerged. He squinted through the smoke at them, and he could just make out the small group, two female figures and two males. He shifted slightly to get a better look at them, when his hand caught a loose stone and it clattered to the floor with a few loud thuds.

At once all of them stiffened and whipped around to look in his direction and he ducked down, praying that they hadn't seen him. One of the men stepped forward, the fire and the light from his torch illuminating his dark hair and eyes as he frowned deeply.

'Who's there?' he asked, voice ringing through, sounding vaguely British to Optimus's ears.

He looked up again, being very careful to ensure he stayed hidden, when he heard something behind him. He turned at once and found himself looking up at a large, rather intimidating man. He hadn't noticed the fourth member of the group slipping off and sneaking up behind him, until it was too late. On instinct his hands tightened around the handle of the Star Saber, but the man above him, obviously a lot more comfortable in his human body than Optimus was, struck first.

Pain, different to any sort of pain he had experienced as a robot, exploded through his head and at once his vision faded out to black. The last thing he heard before he passed out was the other man in the group snapping at his companion.

'Jesus Mark, what the hell was that for?'

**So, what do you think? Please excuse my highly weird brain for coming up with this idea, I've tried telling it off and sending it to the naughty corner, but it won't listen.**

**Anywho, please drop a review in the little box below and let me know what you think, because I just love reviews!**

**See ya later my dear friends.**

**Allison Shorecoat :)**


	2. Confusion

**Hey everyone, I'm back once more with the second chapter of Being Human. Thank you so much to all those people who reviewed to my first chapter. **

**Princess Selina: I hope it is amusing, his confusion is what will make it so.**

**TerraPrime: Thank you. Don't worry, I intend to continue this.**

**CyberKia: Here is another chapter for you :)**

**ForgotMyName2Day: I like your name. Well, I must say that that sounds like an interesting idea to try.**

**Life-Luvr123: Hello there again, I'm glad you find it interesting.**

**Blazestar of Shadowclan: Sorry for not updating sooner, but here is another chapter.**

**JxLBabe: What can I say? I like thinking outside the box. I'm really happy that you like it.**

**elita13: Hopefully it will be very interesting.**

**Random Reviewer: Ooh, Ouch! Nasty experience to have. **

**Chapter 2: Confusion**

'Do you reckon he's okay?'

'I don't know; Mark hit him pretty hard.'

'I didn't mean to knock him out, it just happened.'

'What was he doing there any way?'

'Can I poke him?'

'No way, can you please be serious for once?'

'But being serious is boring.'

When Optimus started to come to, he could hear the voices echoing near his ear and he was instantly confused. These weren't the Autobots, it didn't sound like them anyway, so what were random humans doing near him? He frowned and weakly forced his eyes to open, blinking in surprise when he saw the strange, chipped ceiling above him. This wasn't the base, where was he? He felt a sudden rush of strange emotions as he remembered what had happened, the destruction of the Omega keys, scattering his friends around the globe, the base being destroyed…and waking up trapped in a human body.

'Hey, hey look, he's awake,' he jumped when he heard a high female voice a few meters away and he turned his head to see who it was.

Suddenly though, a small girl bounced up onto the couch, which he realised he was currently lying on and grinned at him, her white teeth sparkling.

'Hi!' she chirped, shaking a small tuft of platinum hair out of her bright green eyes, 'whoa, your eyes are cool! They glow! Why do they glow? Is that normal? I don't think it is, but still, they're pretty. I'm Annie, well my real name is Andromeda, but no one calls me that because it's weird and takes too long to say, I mean really, who calls their kid Andromeda? Well, my parents obviously, but then again, they were pretty odd. What's your name? Is it a cool name or is it boring, like John Smith? Are you called John Smith; you don't look like a John at all. I think you look more like a…hmm, I don't know what you look like…don't you find it funny that people always look like their name? That doesn't even make sense does it?'

Optimus could only blink in surprise, slightly shocked, as the young woman blabbered on. She couldn't be much older than twenty, but the way she was talking and acting, one would think she was a lot younger. Her platinum hair was pulled back into a low pony tail, a small fringe floating down into her large, twinkling green eyes and she didn't appear to blink much at all. She was small, not tiny, but small and while she wasn't fat, she wasn't super thin either, in fact, she was pretty average. But still, her face was, for want of a better word, pretty…he paused, why was he thinking that she was pretty? What was that all about? He shook his head slightly, confused, before clearing his throat as he slowly and stiffly sat up.

'I-I'm Optimus…' he hesitated, and once again, he couldn't help but feel very annoyed that his voice seemed to have gone up a few octaves.

'Optimus? That's a cool name!' Andromeda squealed, looking very happy as she beamed at him.

It was then that she was seized around the waist by a tall, powerful looking man, who carried her off the couch and dumped her on the floor.

'Easy Annie, easy, can't you see you're scaring the poor guy?' he asked, and Optimus recognised his voice as he turned back to him with a small smile, 'Sorry, about her, she talks a lot, but she's harmless. I'm Felix.'

Optimus nodded, pretending that he understood when in reality his mind was reeling with a million and one questions as he looked around the room. How had gotten here? The last place he had been was the base and he didn't remember moving anywhere. They must have moved him when they knocked him out, he decided at long last as he gazed around the room. He was seated on a couch, a pillow under where his head had been and a blanket spread over his body. There were a few other people in there, apart from Felix, Andromeda and himself, including an odd looking woman with dyed purple hair and multiple tattoos, a man who was sitting in some sort of strange looking chair with wheels and of course, the man who had knocked him out…what was his name again? Mark?

He frowned and pressed his lips into a tight line as he looked over at Felix in confusion, a question on his lips, which he never got to speak, because Felix, obviously noticing what he was going to say, spoke up.

'Perhaps I should introduce the rest of the gang. Optimus, did I say it right? Yes? Okay…Optimus, this is Mark, Lou, this is her house and Mitt,

Mark, the one who had knocked him out grunted and shuffled his feet, looking very nervous and shy for someone so large and intimidating. Lou, the woman with the purple hair half saluted him as she lounged back on the chair. Mitt, the man on the chair with the wheels smiled cheerily and pushed himself forward.

'How did I get here?' Optimus had to ask.

Mark looked awkward, 'Well, I didn't know what you were doing there and I thought you might have tried to hurt us, so I hit you. I didn't mean to knock you out…sort of just happened.'

'After the BFG here had finished giving you a nice bruise, Felix carried you back to the car and we brought you back here,' Lou explained, getting up and exiting the room, until her head appeared through a large, square hole in the wall, 'You thirsty or hungry or something? I've got a whole kitchen here.'

Optimus blinked, already confused by their language, '…BFG?'

'Big Friendly Giant. You can't be serious that you've never heard that before,' Mitt laughed.

Optimus just shook his head slowly, 'No...I've never heard that before…also…what are you sitting on exactly?'

Mitt looked down at his chair before laughing, 'Are you for real? Seriously man, you don't know what a wheelchair is? What, did you just crash from outer space or something…ow, Christ Felix.'

Felix just glared down at him, 'Shut up Mitt! What is with you?'

'Well, everyone knows what a wheelchair is...'

'Obviously he doesn't. Now shut it!'

Optimus watched them, confused until Mitt rolled his eyes and turned to face him again, before saying in a very slow and distinct voice, as if he was talking to someone a lot younger, 'My legs don't work properly, so I have to use the wheelchair to move around.'

Optimus nodded slowly, intrigued by the chair, and what it was supposed to do, before he remembered how he had struggled to walk earlier. He pushed the blanket off his body, and was surprised to see more fabric wrapped around his legs. What did Jack and Rafael call them again? Trousers? Had he been wearing them earlier? He couldn't remember, as he rubbed the fabric between his fingers, still unused to having this level of touch sensation in his fingertips. It was then that he also noticed the white, stretchy, somewhat spongy material around his arm and he frowned, running his fingers down it, again noting another weird texture.

'We think you might have broken your arm. Thankfully Lou's a doctor so she managed to patch you up. You had a few burns and cuts, nothing major, but still,' Felix explained, and Optimus nodded, although he was a little confused, because it hadn't hurt, and didn't broken bones hurt?

'Optimus, do you need a phone?' Lou suddenly called and he looked up at her.

'Pardon?' he asked, he knew that Miko constantly used one, but he had no idea how it worked.

'Do you need a phone? To call your friends? Family?' Lou repeated, 'I'm pretty sure they're worried about you, you should let them know that you're okay.'

'Oh…no…no, that's okay…I…ah…don't have any family,' he said hesitantly, not sure if that was going to be excepted by the humans, because he was pretty certain that all of them had families, didn't they?

Much to his relief, Lou just nodded, 'No family? What about friends?'

Optimus was silent, as he thought, trying to think of some reasonable excuse, he didn't think he could really say that his only friends were a small team of transforming giant robots, after all, Autobot rule number one was no letting humans in on it. Felix and Lou exchanged glances with one another and slowly smiled.

'That's okay, don't worry about it,' Felix said, 'besides, we all know what that's like,' the others in the room nodded in agreement.

'What what's like?'

'You're a loner, like us,' Mark grunted.

'Huh?'

'Social outcast honey,' Lou explained, 'that's what we are anyway.'

Optimus looked around at them and they all smiled, 'What?'

'No one likes us. You would have thought that childish dislikes would stay in school, but they don't,' Mitt shrugged, 'but when you're a guy in a wheelchair, who has a habit of insulting everyone, no one wants to go near you and the ones that do, only do out of pity.'

'People are very reserved around you when you're openly gay,' Felix explained easily, 'no matter how old people get, they still treat you like a freak.'

'Everyone seems to think that I'm a hard core drug dealer,' Lou said, 'Just because I have tattoos and funky hair. It is so hard to get work, because no one trusts you.'

Mark grunted in some sort of bitter amusement, 'same as her, sort of. When you're big and intimidating, everyone gives you a wide berth because they think that you're going to mug them.'

Andromeda bounced on her feet, 'I'm too happy and talkative for anyone to like me. But I don't understand that, because it's not like I can help being talkative, it's just who I am. People are so mean sometimes, they judge too quickly.'

'So what about you? Why don't people like you?' Mitt asked, sounding slightly sceptical.

'Um…well…'

'You're just socially awkward aren't you?' Lou asked.

'Sure. Let's go with that,' he was relieved for some sort of excuse to be offered, simply because he had none forthcoming in his head.

'That and you don't know diddly-squat about anything,' Mitt said, 'Maybe we should introduce him to Hayley, I think that they would get on really well.'

Felix just let out an exasperated sigh, but didn't say anything, until Optimus swung his legs off the couch, deciding to give walking another try. The others made it look so easy, it couldn't be that hard, could it?

'Just take it slow, okay, you might feel a bit dizzy, you've been out for a while,' Lou advised, when she saw what he was doing.

'How long?' Optimus found himself asking.

'Over seven hours,' Mark shuffled his feet.

'And while that may not sound like very long, trust me Optimus, you'll probably feel a bit light-headed, so go slowly,' Lou warned.

Optimus nodded, and, taking her advice, he pushed himself up slowly. Much like Lou had predicted, his head went light and his vision spun slightly, a feeling which was very foreign to him. He didn't like it, at all, it made his insides swirl in a way he had never experienced before. He shook his head slightly, feeling very relieved when it cleared, but pretty much as soon as it did, his legs buckled and with a small cry he lost his balance. He felt Felix grab hold of him by his arms and haul him back up.

'Easy buddy, we told you to go slow,' he chuckled.

Optimus blinked hazily, before feeling a slight jolt of alarm as Felix let go of him, and he tensed, waiting to fall. Instead, he kept his feet and he sighed in relief, although he could feel his legs tremble occasionally, and he felt slightly off balance, even though he hadn't fallen yet.

'You okay, you look shell shocked,' Mitt half laughed.

'The balance is so weird…' Optimus wavered, then realised that he had just said that out-loud, and judging by the facial expressions of the people around him, that wasn't a normal thing for a person to say.

'Maybe you should sit down again,' Lou suggested, 'You probably have a concussion, and I don't want to risk straining it.'

Optimus nodded, and went to take a shaky step towards the couch, which was less than half a meter away, but as soon as he took one foot off the ground, his other leg buckled and he collapsed. He felt a flare of irratance, why did it have to be so difficult? It wasn't supposed to be surely.

He let out a slight hiss of shock as he felt Felix practically pick him up and place him on the couch, a small, concerned frown creasing his brow.

'Are you okay? Something up with your legs?'

'Ah…' Optimus started, then suddenly stopped as he felt his head spin once again, this time more violently.

He raised his hand to his head, blinking, trying to clear his vision, but pretty much all that happened was his eyesight darkened more. His stomach swirled again, and the last thing he remembered as someone catching him, to prevent him from falling.

…

Felix lightly caught the young man as his eyes slid shut and he passed out. Lou hurried over as he laid him back on the couch properly, and pulled the blanket up around him again.

'What's wrong with him?' he asked.

'I haven't a clue. He's not concussed, I've checked about four times.'

'He seemed so confused,' Mitt stated, rolling forward, and frowning.

Felix frowned, then let out a small laugh as Optimus rolled onto his side, body curling beneath the covers. He couldn't be much older than twenty, twenty-two at the outside, with a lithe, yet muscled body. His skin was dotted with burns and grazes, but they had cleaned it of all the soot and ash, when they had brought him back, revealing the strangest of tattoos on his biceps, which Annie had tried to convince them that they were alien markings. His dark brown hair, stood up in short quills, and only added to his youthful appearance.

'He couldn't walk, he didn't know what we were saying half the time, he had to think about what a phone was. Did you see the way he was looking at everything, like he had never seen a couch or bandages before,' Felix shrugged, 'Who is this guy?'

'All I know is that we found him unconscious, in the burnt out wreckage of an old army base, with nothing but some weird-ass sword and this weird floppy disc,' Lou gestured to the floor beside the door, where the sword they had found with him lay, and a small, oddly shaped disc had been placed on the table.

'Well, that doesn't help us very much.'

'He says he has no family or friends…'

'Maybe he's an alien!' Annie chirped happily.

'You think that everyone is an alien,' Mark grunted and she giggled.

Felix shook his head, before sighing as he studied the sleeping boy, 'Well, if we can hardly start judging him can we? I say we let him stay until we can figure out who he is.'

The others looked at each other, then nodded in agreement.

**Okay, so I must admit, not a lot happens in that chapter, but hey, I had to introduce them all somehow. I promise that it will get much more interesting very soon.**

**Just for future reference, the "weird floppy disk" is the Key to Vector Sigma.**

**Hope you enjoyed it enough to visit that little box just below and type a few words in it. **

**Merry (slightly early) Christmas everyone.**

**Ally :)**


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